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CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY

By Annie Mang’eere

The news anchor did not inform viewers that the news item that was about to air would be disturbing to some. With no viewer discretion advised, images of a young man eating grass were aired on national TV. It was seven o’clock evening news and at this time many Kenyan children would be preparing to take their supper and were perhaps glued in front of television sets watching the same images I was watching. I wondered what they would make of the bizarre footage on TV and how it would affect their any decisions in their adulthood.


The young man in the news item was ferociously eating grass, cutting it with his teeth and chewing it as animals do. The police restrained him from partaking more of his meal, which he said tasted so well, and gave him some water to drink. The young man is said to have forgotten were his home was or his name after he started his strange habit. He was a victim of witchcraft. He had fallen victim after he stolen some animal from a home protected with witchcraft.


Kenyans seem to have a morbid unrestrained hatred for thieves. Since independence in the early sixties and even up to date, thieves caught in the act are beaten to death or burnt alive by the citizens. More vicious criminals like gun totting gangsters have always been dealt with by vigilante groups who turned out to be partisan and more blood thirsty than the criminals they were supposed to apprehend. The groups were banned.


Since the Kenya police have always been somewhat incapable of doing their job, Kenyans have always taken the mandate of their security in their hands. Never mind that the police have more problems than neither the government nor the citizens are willing to admit. With the vigilante gone and mob justice criminalized, more and more ordinary Kenyans are turning to witchcraft to protect themselves.


Only a few months ago, a group of motorcycle operators lost one of their own to armed robbery. Enraged and inconsolable, colleagues of the deceased reported the matter to the police and sought the services of a witch doctor to nail the perpetrators. They were quoted at a vernacular station saying that they doubted the police would find the killer of their colleague. But they were awaiting the action of the witchdoctor working on their case! And this was in central Kenya where witchcraft has always been frowned on and widely rejected.


The disturbing sight of the young man eating grass brought to mind the idea of some free advertising of services and a spine chilling reminder of the reality of witchcraft. Because of its much touted efficacy, more and more ordinary people in Kenya are considering it a viable option to engage the services of witchdoctors to protect even just cabbages growing in a small farm.

The practice of using witchcraft to protect what belongs to one is more popular in Tanzania, Kenya’s neighbour to the South. Here it is reported that goods left unattended are never even just touched no matter their worth because of the prevalence of using dark powers to keep guard.


Even in Kenya at present getting justice from witchcraft is now something that is discussed openly on radio and broadcasting stations as illustrated above. This has been helped a lot by the huge popularity of movies now aired on almost all broadcasting stations from a West African nation. In this movies Christianity is often cast as quite inferior to witchcraft, and at times as a place where the unrepentant hide to cover up for evils committed, but from where they are often found and punished by witchcraft.


All this sudden upsurge in interest in witchcraft, though is happening in a country (Kenya) that is one of the few in the world where gospel music outsells secular music.


Kenyans voted in a new constitution in 2010. According to more than 70% of the church in Kenya, the document was fraught with ambiguities, and seemed to elevate some religious groupings above others, opening doors for likely inter religious conflicts. The document opened wide a door to bring the abortion holocaust to Kenya. The clergy opposing the document advised that it be perfected and the ambiguous offending clauses be removed. But Kenyans wanted more the better economic policies the document would enable, and to have some control over their hugely disappointing parliamentarians. The document was voted in unanimously. Kenyans preferred to listen to the politicians who we are often told have bring into town their expert wizards complete with their very long snakes, every time an election is round the corner.


Perhaps it is time the church in Kenya collectively assessed itself more in the light of this experiences to find out if it is still relevant to Kenyans, and if she can still be the conscience and moral authority of society. With the advent of so many new churches around the country, and the emphasis of the Christian experience being placed anywhere else than to live in the spirit of Christ, perhaps the flocks have become disillusioned with their leaders. The prosperity gospel has taken centre stage in Kenya. Many Kenyans end up seeing no godliness in their church leaders, which is making the quality go out of fashion very fast, and thus the deadly flirting with powers of darkness.


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